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Published: February 24th 2008
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Phnom Penh Market
That rat hole i mentioned. They mostly come out at night... Mostly After all the partytime in Vietnam our poor livers were in need of some serious recovery, and nowhere seemed better than the little heart shaped country in SE Asia called Cambodia. We headed into the capital Phnom Pehn to start with early in January and to be honest it was a bit of a dump, we did very little here (the first time round anyway, be patient dear reader...) except watch the mighty Luton achieve an admirable draw against the Scousers in the FA cup and walk though the most rat infested market known to man (seriously some of those blighters were as big as cats!).
We then headed down to the beach resort of Sihanoukville, planning to stay 3 or 4 days there before a bit of culture and heading up to the temples round Siem Reap. Yeah right. Give Sean and Ross a beach and you're gonna struggle to move them after just 4 days quite frankly... We ended up staying there for about 8 or 9 I think in the end, lounging on the beach during the day and heading to the Top Cat Cinema (rent a room and any film(s) for 2 hours only 10 dols,
Sihanoukville Beach
The best looking bod on there, I swear! strongly recommended!!) at night, it was tough work I tell you. We did manage a small boat excursion one day, we went round some of the islands to do some snokeling which was a hell of a lot of fun. The only downside really was that I managed to absolutely spank my foot off a jagged rock lurking just under the water and I've still got the scars to prove it. Ho Hum. Needless to say Ross was less than sympathetic.
After several days of doing nothing we felt it'd probably be a good idea to culture it up and head to Siem Reap, with a short stop over in Phnom Penh. When we arrived back in the capital we wasted little time in booking a tuk tuk out for the following day to take us round the S-21 prison museum and the Killing Fields. The S21 prison was converted to an interrogation prison from a school during Pol Pot's vicious Khmer Rouge regime. It certainly was a harrowing experience going from room seeing the conditions that over 17000 men and women suffered in (of those 17000 very few survived to see the end of the Khmer Rouge genocide).
Bad Asses
You gotta ask yourself one question - "Do I feel lucky?", Well. do ya? Punk! Needless to say we needed cheering up after such brutality, and what better way than to go and do the most manly thing possible and shoot some guns?! Our friendly tuk tuk driver took us to a military base where tourists could hire the best catharsis possible by blowing holes in cutouts of bad guys. Both Ross and I decimated a helpless piece of paper with 30 rounds from an AK 47 and managed to miss the traget with all but one round each of a Magnum (not a .44 you'll be dissapointed to hear). It was all good fun and we managed to avoid blowing each other's faces off so all in all it was a success I feel. After all that elation we felt we needed bringing back down again so it was on to the Killing Fields just outside Phnom Penh. This, as the name suggests, was where thousands upon thousands of people where killed and buried in mass graves during the Khmer genocide, there's even a massive pillar of skulls near the entrance to protray the magnitue of the atrocity.
After this second cutting experience we needed to make ourselves feel better yet again and,
Angkor Wat
The approch, and an amatuer's finger, Ross! you'll be amazed to hear, we didn't turn to beer! No, instead we decided to meet a friend of Mr P Blackler's and help out at an oprhanage in Siem Reap. Chann (Paul's pal, and now ours too) was one of the friendliest people I've ever meet and in turn for us teaching a meagre amount of English to his kids at the Child Protection Centre he kindly offered to spend the day showing us around the legendary Angkor Wat and surrounding temples. Angkor Wat really was amazing and it'd be really tough to get the feeling of it across in this blog, but I can say it was a strange and awe inspiring experience to stand in the midst (great word) of something that's so old and has got so much history. We also had time to check out the other Wats such as Ta Prohm where the Tomb Raider movie was filmed (busted a few moves there too) as well as the Terrace of the Leper King. On our last night in Siem Reap Chann and some of his staff held a party at the centre with Ross and myself as guests of honour, it was a great
Chann and moi
Our guide and best pal in Cambodia send off and to this day Chann and his friends are sorely missed.
On leaving Siem Reap we headed to Battambang, not for any real reason other than that we didn't want to leave Cambodia yet! We stayed there for a few days and visited the lesser known Killing Caves, similar to the Killing Fields but a cave... The Khmer Rouge would take people up to the top of the hill, kill them, then throw them down a huge drop into the cave below. Again, harrowing stuff. But don't let this atrocious past put you of "The 'Bode" at all, it realy is a lovely country with the friendliest people you are likely to meet, it was an honour and a pleasure to visit. After that we headed back across the Thai border to Bangkok.
Stay Tuned.
Sean
P.S. Sorry about the weak effort photowise, both myself and Ross managed to break our stupid cameras in Cambodia - Doh!! But never fear, we bought a new one the other day and Ross has taken it to the Philippines, say CHEESE!
P.P.S. I have added a few more photos as I had them on my memory
Gekko
One of our mozzy eating friends in Sihanoukville card which I have taken with me - Ross
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